This year's POLITICO 50 includes almost a half-dozen education-related influencers, including Sara Goldrick-Rab, Deray McKesson, Brittany Packnett, Matthew Desmond, and Ann 'Oleary. Read all about them. Desmond is the person who wrote the book about the lives of poor black and white residents of Milwaukee, who are regularly forced to move from one expensive apartment to another.

Tomorrow is the scheduled announcement of the XQ Challenge Winners -- the effort to rethink high school that's been going on for the past several months via the Emerson Collective. The initiative is called the XQ America challenge, and the hashtags are #RethinkHighSchool and/or #XQBigReveal.

There have been three recent setbacks for edreform folks -- somewhat symbolic in nature but important nonetheless. The edereform response -- even with a recent effort to get opposing views out there -- has been slow, confused, and seemingly ineffective.

The first edreform setback was the addition of anti-charter amendments to the DNC platform last month.

The second was the decision by the NAACP to include strong anti-charter legislation in its annual resolutions.

The third was the inclusion of several anti-charter provisions in the Black Lives Matter education agenda released last week (along with some provisions with which the edreform community would likely agree).

While symbolic in nature, these three instances are both critical of the edreform approach and -- even more important -- seem to expose the lack of engagement and reach of edreform advocates in the DNC, NAACP, and BlackLivesMatter.

Most of the attention on the Movement for Black Lives' agenda, released earlier this week, focused on the call for reparations and other agenda items.

However, a little-noted part of the comprehensive agenda was its education section, which calls for "An End to the Privatization of Education and Real Community Control by Parents, Students and Community Members of Schools Including Democratic School Boards and Community Control of Curriculum, Hiring/Firing, and Discipline Policies."

Some highlight quotes:

*Privatization strips Black people of the right to self-determine the kind of education their children receive.

*Using mayoral control and state takeover, they impose their experimental, market-based approach to school reform.

*The education crises plaguing most of our public school districts are the result of corporate-controlled, state-sanctioned and federally-funded attacks to reverse Brown v. Board of Education, and create a desuetude discrimination and educational apartheid that must be challenged and overthrown.

*Their aims are to undermine Black democracy and self-determination, destroy organized labor, and decolor education curriculum, while they simultaneously overemphasize Standardized Testing, and use school closures to disproportionately disrupt access to education in Black communities.

The authors of this section include Jonathan Stith (Alliance for Educational Justice), Hiram Rivera (Philadelphia Student Union), and Chinyere Tutashinda (Center for Media Justice). According to an Tweet from Stith, "A squad of Black education justice parent & youth organizers [was] present as well." The resources provided for this agenda include the Every Student Succeeds Act Explained, AROS Demands Memo, and Journey For Justice.

In case it isn't clear, this call for elected school boards, an end to privatization, and a pullback from foundations like Gates and Broad is very much a reform critic's view of what needs to be done -- not at all a reformers' vision.

Or, as The American Prospect's Rachel Cohen put it, "There are some high-profile Teach for America alums in Black Lives Matter, but the #Vision4BlackLives platform calls for the program's end."

As such, this is the second time in recent weeks that we're reading about reform groups seeming to have been outflanked by their critics. The earlier instance was the development of the DNC party platform, which included amendments from Randi Weingarten and others that called for similar things. (You could also include the release of stolen DNC emails in which campaign officials urge against mention of Common Core.)

It's also an early indication of where the larger Black Lives Matter movement might be headed on education issues, which has been until now a murky thing to understand. There are several TFA alumni among the leaders of the movement, but the movement has also partnered with teachers unions in places like Chicago (where a BLM activist surprised union leaders by denouncing the police union).

However, there are areas in which the movement's agenda would seem to go along with the priorities of many reform groups -- and put them in conflict with organized labor. Some quoted highlights:

*Put a moratorium on all out of school suspensions.

*Remove police from schools and replace them with positive alternatives to discipline and safety.

*Inequitable funding at the school district, local and state level leave most public schools — where poor communities of color are the majority — unable to provide adequate and high quality education for all students, criminalizing and targeting Black students through racist zero-tolerance discipline policies.

*Key stakeholders, such as parents, teachers, and students are left out of the decision making process.

*Create Community Schools that have wrap-around services for students and community members as a turnaround model instead of closing schools or charterization.

It's also well worth noting that this document, released by a group calling itself the Movement for Black Lives (aka #Vision4BlackLives), may not represent the larger movement's education agenda, or the focal point of BLM efforts on education.

There's still no official news about DFER and other education groups holding events during next week's Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, but I'm being told that there are going to be some early-week panels and a reception.

The first panel might address what happens next for education and DFER. Another panel might address non-school issues that DFER has up until now been extremely reluctant to get involved in.

You'll be the first to know when some official details come out about panelists, access, and all the rest. As you may recall, DFER held its first big event in Denver in 2008 at the DNC, and held another event in 2012 at which union leaders appeared. My case study about the sudden rise and recent challenges facing DFER came out via AEI just a few days ago.

The last year especially has been an awkward one for the organization. A recent example: DFER appeared to have been caught unprepared a couple of weeks ago when the DNC platform committee accepted a handful of amendments from reform critics such as Troy Laravierre and Randi Weingarten. Platform positions may not matter, and the amendment may not make much sense, but it was a pretty startling turn of events for a group that has for so many years been on the inside, seeming to be able to press all the right levers.

Maybe the best way to think of Monday's events is as some sort of reboot/relaunch.

Here's the latest in a series of occasional case studies I've been doing the past few years, this one about an education-focused PAC called Democrats For Education Reform that was an early backer of Barack Obama and had lots of early success, but has struggled in recent years as its oponents (the teachers unions, mostly) have shifted tactics and politics have gotten more polarized. It came out late last week. Read it all here.

Most folks know the early history of DFER, the Democratic PAC that supports charters, choice, and accountability: the lucky pick of Barack Obama, the amazing timing on Race to the Top, etc.

This picture, via Whitney Tilson, encapsulates those early days.

However, a new case study out today from AEI (written by me) tells how those early successes were blunted, then turned into liabilities during the last four years: how critics began labeling DFER as part of "corporate" reform efforts, how the teachers unions turned Common Core concerns into a rallying cry, and -- most disappointingly, perhaps -- DFER generally stood by as social justice issues (immigration, integration, police violence) grew in importance.

Meantime, DFER failed to create the Emily's List-style donor base that would broaden its support and free it up from charter advocates.

With the Democratic platform amended by reform critics and the Democratic convention coming up later this month, there's no better time to look at what DFER's done, what it's become, and where it might go next.

New DFER head Shavar Jeffries says that he's going to make DFER a deep part of the Democratic Party. But there's not much sign so far that DFER has changed, and from recent events it seems like he's got his work cut out for him.

Reform critics like to talk about big social issues like poverty, or focus on reform challenges like racial segregation in charter schools, but downplay ignore structural issues in public education like school assignment policies and district boundaries.

It's not just attendance zones and school assignment policies within districts that contribute to segregation and school inequality. According to a new report from EdBuild, school district boundaries themselves play a dramatic role in "segregating communities and separating low-income kids from educational opportunity." The most vivid examples of this effect are "island" districts entirely surrounded by other school districts of vastly different means.

"The way we fund schools in the United States creates incentives for communities to segregate along socioeconomic lines in order to preserve local wealth. In so doing, communities create arbitrary borders that serve to lock students into, or out of, opportunity. This reality is especially glaring in the case of island school districts that are entirely surrounded by single districts of very different means."

While there are nearly 200 examples nationwide, the report highlights examples in Oakland, Freehold NJ, and Columbus OH.

There was a period of time where it was as if almost anyone who wanted to open a charter school could get a grant of $100,000 from the Waltons. It ran like that for a number of years, until eventually they looked at the results and decided this wasn’t working.

Still buzzing over the Sunday Tony awards show? Me, too. Check out the show performances if you missed any here, or click the link above and watch some of the NYC high school kids who've been attending the show and performing for Lin Manuel-Miranda as part of what Scholastic's Wayne D'Orio dubbed "Hamilton 101." It's pretty cool to watch them. The video is about a half-hour long.

There's a big Equity Matters Symposium being held tomorrow at the Ford Foundation offices in NYC, and while invitations are limited to journalists you can apparently watch via livestream here.

Some of the speakers include Gloria Ladson-Billings, Sean Reardon, and Richard Rothstein.

Some of the Equity Project journalists who will talk about their projects include Alejandra Lagos, Zaidee Stavely, Kristina Rizga, and Patrick Wall. Cara Fitzpatrick, will also be there. Spencer Fellowship head LynNell Hancock, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and Keith Woods are also scheduled to attend.

You can find the full list of Speakers and the Schedule of events by clicking the links.

What's it all about? According to the promo materials, the Equity Matters event "will bring together the nation’s top experts and education journalists in examining the root causes and impact of our nation’s ever-widening “opportunity gap.”

Funded by the Ford Foundation (with whom I've discussed supporting THE GRADE), the Equity Project is part of a broader SF-based initiative called RenaissanceJournalism, which sponsors "national initiatives that support journalists and their news organizations to produce ambitious, in-depth and compelling stories that reveal and illuminate social injustice and inequity."

Some examples of work funded in part by the Renaissance Journalism project include the Detroit Journalism Collaborative's seven-part series on race and poverty. Click here for the full list.

This isn't the first such gathering. There was an event in San Francisco not too long ago featuring Rizga, Pirette McKamey and Robert Roth.

These aren't the only fellowships for education journalists. Others include the Spencer Education Journalism Fellowship (which I received in 2009), new EWA Fellowships, the Teacher Project fellowships (whose work appears in Slate).

Philanthropists are not generally education experts, and even if they hire scholars and experts, public officials shouldn’t be allowing them to set the policy agenda for the nation’s public schools. The Gates experience teaches once again that educational silver bullets are in short supply and that some educational trends live only a little longer than mayflies.

The most interesting moment might be the 55:00 minute mark, where Lisa Snell and Roland Martin discuss a failed NOLA mobilization effort. The Seventy Four contributor Cynthia Tucker Haynes is the moderator. Watch all NSVF Summit videos here. Which one should I watch/show next?

That's Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of "Hamilton," speaking at the UPenn graduation ceremony last weekend. It's a line from the show, which a foundation is sending thousands of NYC high school kids to see this Spring.

Normally, teachers unions and school advocates support Democratic politicians and are the mortal enemies of conservative Republicans. Yet this time, they found an enthusiastic supporter in Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee and chairman of the Senate Education Committee.

Signs abound that this era of polarization is giving way to a different and more constructive phase in U.S. efforts to boost student achievement.... The dawn of a new era of K-12 philanthropy .... Funders [like Walton and Broad] are no longer the dominant drivers.

NSVF was the first place I saw Google Glass (RIP), and I'm guessing that this year's event will be full of drone demos, holograms/VR, hoverboards, 3D printers, bots, and wearables. AltSchool's Max Ventilla will be a mini-celebrity. Newly-hired Chan Zuckerberg honcho Jim Shelton will be a full-on celebrity.

No surprise -- everyone's doing it -- one of the big pushes at NSVF this year is trying to create an authentic, diverse movement. LEE's organizing guru Mark Fraley, is going to be speaking, along with #BlackLivesMatter's Brittany Packnett and DREAMer José Patiño.

The 69th Education Writers Association National Seminar is taking place starting Sunday, and all your favorite education journalists are scheduled to be there: members of the NPR education team, the NYT's Peabody-winning Nikole Hannah-Jones, the Tampa Bay Times' Pulitzer-winning Cara Fitzpatrick and Lisa Gartner, the the NYT's Kate Zernike, WSJ's Leslie Brody, etc. Plus there will be many big-name policy wonks and education leaders, such as Boston superintendent Tommy Chang, Stanford's Sean Reardon, UPenn's Angela Duckworth, the AFT's Randi Weingarten, MA's Mitch Chester, and EdSec John King.

The vast majority of the upcoming EWA annual conference in Boston starting this weekend is dedicated to helping journalists understand hot topics in education. There's an app. There's a print program. There are "lightning talks." There's a hashtag: #EWA16.

But there are also a slew of few panels and events focused on education journalism itself, including of course the annual EWA awards. The first morning of the conference is focused on journalists describing how they reported a challenging topic, using data, adding audio, and getting access. The afternoon session includes journalists like Kristina Rizga and Dale Russakoff talking about their book-length projects. Some of the "Lightning Talks" -- 5 Mistakes Journos Make When Covering Ed Research, How to Really Talk with Boys from Diverse Backgrounds, Maximizing Digital Media for Reporting -- focus on the tools of the trade.

The only topics missing that I can see are writing for social media (Snapchat, Facebook Live) and using images and graphics.

Teachers and education reporters have lots in common, notes EWA head Caroline Hendrie in the program introduction: "In both education and journalism, interest in addressing inequality and injustice – social, economic, and institutional – is on the rise. Both educators and members of the news media face demands for greater fairness from the communities affected by their work. Concern about inculcating cultural competence in both educators and reporters is keen. How to diversify both fields’ workforces remains a stubborn problem. At the same time, the two sectors are struggling to meet ever-changing standards of quality. After all, both fields are traversing periods of transformation, as new technologies and standards of excellence continuously redefine success."

Another notable angle: For the first time in recent memory, the EWA award winners will be announced at this event -- after the Peabody and Pulitzer awards have already been named. For background on the finalists, read Hits, Misses, Snubs, & Mysteries.

Who funds all this? Well, the event is co-sponsored with BU's Communications and Education Schools, and the sponsor page includes the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, Raikes, Wallace, Walton, Hewlett, Nellie Mae, American Federation of Teachers, Pearson, College Board, Edwin Gould, Gates, National Education Association, Secure Schools Alliance, American Institutes for Research, and Scholastic. Programming for new reporters comes from Spencer and the W.T. Grant Foundation.

But that shouldn't obscure what may be the biggest development of the first half of 2016, which is the uncertain, awkward interactions between the social justice movement BLM and the partisan political systems and players that shape everything from how billions in education funding gets spent to how Congressional districts are created.

There's no doubt that BLM has burst onto the scene like a much-anticipated Beyonce album. Just the other day, President Obama -- sounding somewhat out of tune given the detailed proposals of Project Zero -- criticized BLM for too much yelling and not enough engagement.

Everybody wants to ally with BLM -- from Sanders and Clinton to teachers and school reformers -- at least most of the time.

But it isn't at all clear where the fit is going to last and (so far at least) BLM leaders haven't fractured or joined forces with any particular stakeholder group -- labor, education reform, the Democratic Party establishment, or Bernie Sanders liberals.

McKesson, with his school reform background, has raised suspicions among some labor activists and progressives who might otherwise be eager to join with the social justice leader.

But for union and other leaders it's hard to figure out how to be with and against BLM leaders at the same time, or to come up with any coherent approach.

In case you missed it, the CTU invited BLM to join a rally a few weeks ago, then struggled to figure out what to do when BLM's Page May started denouncing the police -- a union local -- from the event podium.

"The CTU keeps acting like they are on our side, but then Karen Lewis refuses to say cops need to get out of schools," May said in the DNA Info story. "Until they come out explicitly opposed to cops in schools, I don't think we are fighting on the same side."

According to this American Prospect story, local BLM activists were part of the one-day CTU walkout. And indeed they were there. But obviously CTU and the local BLM weren't really on the same page -- creating a conflict with the union that represents police officers.

When called on to apologize to the police for the rally comments, one CTU ally defiantly Tweeted "CTU can apologize once the [police union] apologizes for supporting & fundraising 100k for [police officer] Van Dyke who killed our CPS student."

A top CTU official distanced the union from the comments.

At roughly the same time, McKesson was indicating his support in the form of a raised fist emoji:

How this is going to resolve is anybody's guess. BLM could implode or fade, like so many previous groups. It could splinter, or it could find an ally with one or several of the existing combatants out there.

The conundrum is just as much a challenge to education reform groups and Democratic Party traditionalists as it is to the CTU or progressives.

Meet Keron Blair, described as the Organizer Behind Education Protests Sweeping The Country in this ThinkProgress piece. I've been following him and the coalition he helps organize, AROS (Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools). AROS puts out the useful "This Week In Education Organizing" email. They were at NPE in North Carolina a couple of weekends ago. They're organization another round of Walk-Ins on 5/4 (next week). Details here.

Last weekend in North Carolina, Jennifer Berkshire and Peter Cunningham talked education at the NPE conference. Watch it above. Note how close to the door Cunningham has arranged to sit. Read his reflections on the experience here.

Skip to the 32:00' mark to watch EdSec King talk at a recent Century Foundation event about encouraging districts to return to school desegregation. Seems like it might be too little too late to me, but it's certainly an interesting thing to have discussed.

There are at least three big outsider campaigns going on right now, though most folks are only paying attention to Sanders and Trump. The third is BlackLivesMatter's Deray McKesson running for mayor of Baltimore, which like the others has implications (for BlackLivesMatter, most of all) regardless of whether he wins (seems unlikely) or loses.

There are also going to be screenings of the film, Most Likely To Succeed (see trailer above), which focuses among other things on the projects and presentations that are part of the model developed at High Tech High.

For those of you who'll be following along online, the official hashtag is #DefiningSuccess2016 and you can find more on Instagram at @yalesomelc2016.

Here's my latest Scholastic Administrator column, about the Teach for America Reboot: "The controversy surrounding TFA may have been helpful, in the end. As Villanueva Beard told Politico, “'I’m grateful for when people make our shortcomings clear, because it enables us to get better.'”

In honor of the announcement from The Seventy Four that 50CAN and StudentsFirst were merging, which is either a totally understandable move or a strange and early April Fool's, here's the video of the original Michelle Rhee announcement.

Teach for America to cut national staff by 15 percent Washington Post: The two shake-ups will leave Teach for America with approximately 930 national staff members in fiscal year 2017, 410 fewer than it employed in fiscal year 2015, according to the organization. It’s a staffing level that the organization expects will be sustainable even if there are fluctuations in the number of new corps members it is able to recruit. See also Atlantic, Teacher Beat.

Rosa, new head of New York education policy: As a parent, ‘I would opt out’ ChalkbeatNY: Rosa spoke about the need to retool the tests to rebuild trust with parents, and said that families have the right to choose what is best for their children. “If I was a parent and I was not on the Board of Regents, I would opt out at this time,” Rosa told reporters Monday, shortly after she was elected chancellor of the Board of Regents.

Prospects for the Next President Keeping John B. King Jr. as Education Secretary PK12: On the Senate education committee, Sanders joined the rest of his Democratic colleagues by voting to advance King's nomination to the full Senate earlier this month. But he is listed as not voting in the full Senate on King's nomination. Generally speaking, if Sanders wins out, there's no reason to believe the unions would significantly alter their political strategy regarding King.

Pierre Omidyar helps fund education startup Tinkergarten BBJ: The startup specializes in outdoor early childhood education, helping educators lead activities for kids outside. The activities include "outsmart a leprechaun" and "celebrate the winter solstice." Tinkergarten said the company now has classes running across 14 states.

A legal loophole might be exposing children to lead in the nation's schools Washington Post: Under federal law, the vast majority of schools don’t have to test the water flowing out of their taps and drinking fountains, and many states and districts also do not mandate water testing at schools. Even when districts do test their water, they don’t always tell parents about the problems they find.

Early-Ed. Measures Percolate at State, Local Levels EdWeek: According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, about 450 bills with some tie to early childhood are pending in 46 states. At this early stage, it's unclear how many of those proposals will be enacted into law. But if local and state lawmakers follow the trend of previous years, many places will see increased early-childhood investment.

Why Big-City School Systems Are Going Broke US News: Detroit's school system, already $515 million in debt, can't afford to pay its staff past April 8. In Chicago, the city school district – the third-largest in the country – is a whopping $1.1 billion in debt. In Philadelphia, despite the school system there ending the year with an $88 million surplus, the city has backed a lawsuit against the state by other school districts over inadequate funding. More than 2,000 public school students in Boston also walked out of their classrooms earlier this month in opposition to proposed budget cuts.

High Schools Are Failing Girls Who Report Sexual Assault Huffington Post: Under Title IX, schools receiving federal funding must eliminate a hostile environment stemming from gender-based violence. And the Education Department has told schools since at least the Clinton administration that a single incident of severe sexual harassment -- such as an assault -- can constitute a hostile environment. So when a high school gets a report of a student-on-student assault, it's typically supposed to do its own investigation.

City Schools to See Some Money They're Owed — But Not All WNYC: Orlando said the mayor's preliminary budget includes more than $150 million to "raise the floor" from last year's minimum of 82 percent to a new minimum of 87 percent. This will affect 650 schools. However, Renewal Schools — which were already receiving extra funds — will receive 100 percent of what they were owed instead of last year's 92 percent.

Yep, that's Laurene Powell Jobs in the latest issue of Vogue, talking about how 10,000 proposal teams are trying to make it to the finalist list of about 400 and then 5 actual XQ awardees. Click the link if the Facebook embed doesn't render properly. #typepadsocreaky

Success Academy Plans Another Harlem Elementary School WSJ: The network is starting a program that lets parents rank their preferences among its 11 middle school sites in Manhattan, the Bronx and Brooklyn, and fifth-graders expecting to attend the Harlem Central site next fall are being redirected to Harlem North West nearby.

Louisiana voucher students did worse at new schools, study says NOLA: Louisiana's private school voucher program was billed as an exit hatch for students from bad public schools. But it was more like a trap door, according to a study released Monday (Feb. 22) by the University of Arkansas and the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans at Tulane University.

Teaching Laquan McDonald WBEZ Chicago: In the wake of the several released videos of Chicago police-involved shooting deaths of African Americans after the Laquan McDonald video, some educators have been tasked with altering their daily lesson plans for frank discussions about police brutality. Walter Taylor, a professional development facilitator for the Chicago Teachers Union’s Quest Center, talks about “Teaching About Laquan McDonald.”

Desegregation Proposal Depends on Parents' Choices WNYC: The vast majority of students in the district are Latino and black; at East Village Community School, more than half the students are white, about 20 percent are Hispanic and fewer than 10 percent are black. The school also has fewer low-income children than the district overall, just about 25 percent compared to almost 80 percent.

There were at least two former organizers of the Yale SOM education summit at the TFA conference last week - Edna Novak and Graham Brown (pictured with me above) -- and Yale SOM 2016 is fast approaching.

Keynote speakers include Shavar Jeffries, Sandra Abrevaya, and Sondra Samuels. As in the past, it's being held at the Omni in New Haven.

There are scheduled to be panels on Common Core testing, blended learning, college attainment, parent advocacy, teachers of color, segregation of schools, community colleges, school readiness, federal policy after NCLB, revisiting "no excuses" approaches, effective philanthropy, and many others.

If you want to follow last year's social media, check out #backtowhy, or check out my livetweets from that day. There was some controversy about the lack of racial diversity on one or two of the panels -- even though the event was much more diverse than some of its predecessors.

What I don't see on the program so far is anything that focuses on the state and local education agencies who govern most public schools, or the unions whose locals represent many educators who work with them. But the panel list doesn't look final and there are no panelists listed so far.

It's on April 7th and 8th. The twitter is @YaleELC. The hashtag is#DefiningSuccess2016.